Obamacare, Climate Change Hoax, Cap and Trade - ALL DEAD!

DubsFan said:

Yes it would be cheaper to insure them. I agree with that. The question is how. The easiest and what appears to be the most economically prudent would be to increase taxes to pay for these people.

Since when do insurance companies have to be non profit? FYI- I've been on the board of two non profits. They have nothing to do with saving anyone money. What's the easiest way to "not show a profit." The easiest is to just give everyone a raise. The next easiest, which can be done in conjunction with bonuses is for the entity to do a retirement contribution for its employees. The entity/institution, making a pension contribution to employee retirement account give that institution a nice deduction and the recipient of that contribution does not pay income tax on it.

The word non profit makes everyone warm and fuzzy. There is nothing "non profit" about Non Profits. Ask Jesse Jackson.

One of the biggest problems with health care are the government programs. Everyone should be able to buy into Medicare? That's a pretty broad based idea.

You realize the elderly are the ones who will be hurt by every person who gets to receive Medicare early. The elderly cannot take care of themselves at all. They usually cannot work and at there ages should have to. Why someone age 55 who is unemployed should be able to qualify for Medicare is beyond me. The elderly deserve that benefit more than some dude who has fallen on hard times.

Non Profits and Medicare is your answer? You're starting to sound like congress. Currently nobody is denied treatment. Absolutely nobody.

Hospitals are more of a utility now then a place of purchased service. They are like a water fountain in a park.

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abe23 said:

Nobody is denied treatment at the emergency, but try going to your doctor and telling him you don't have insurance and can't pay. And emergency room visits that you and I are paying for through higher ER costs is the least efficient way of providing treatment.

I don't think you understood my point about not-for-profit health insurance. Look at the german model, this is exactly what they do. And it's cheaper than what we do and they get just as good care overall....plus, they have the option of buying entirely private insurance if they choose to. I'm not saying I want human rights watch to run my healthcare plan, but I don't see how consumers currently benefit from the profits and overhead this industry makes. There is no added value they provide. Nobody should be turning a profit by denying people coverage, but this is exactly what these companies do and that is the reason healthcare reform was the number one issue in the election last year for a lot of people. And what you say about raising salaries to obscure profits is hilarious, because that's exactly what health insurance companies do!

Go ask a doctor if they prefer dealing with medicare or private insurance companies. Every practicing physician I know tells me that whatever the problems with medicare, they would rather deal with them than the insurance companies. And if healthy people are able to buy into medicare at a young age, it would help keep it solvent, since they would balance out the very expensive care needed for people 65+. That would be a good public option, imho.

Also, you do realize that employer-based healthcare IS a form of socialized medicine, right? The only difference is that the people administering it do so for a profit...

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DubsFan said:

Have you seen the taxes in Germany?

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abe23 said:

Yup and I had to pay them when I lived there! Have you seen what some americans pay for health insurance premiums. Or the health insurance premiums they don't pay because they can't afford them?

Also, the taxes in germany go to pay for A LOT of public services that I'm not advocating for over here, like semi-permanent unemployment benefits, pensions, 9 month maternity/paternity leave and free university education for as long as you can stand it. I'm just saying that we can learn from their healthcare model. Or that of the netherlands, taiwan, singapore etc for that matter...

You still haven't explained what value added service the health insurance industry provides. I can tell you. None whatsoever. Why should anyone be profiting from what they do? To me this is the crux of the problem and the reason we spend so much on healthcare as a proportion of our GDP. Can you explain to me where I'm wrong?

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DubsFan said:

Why should anyone be profiting from what they do? Please explain your point of view on this.

Value added? Ditto.

I'm fully aware of what health care costs. For me and my wife its $400mo. It's finally that low because she is part of a bigger group. When my business was buying the health care us it was $600 and shitty insurance at that.

I'm not saying these uninsured don't need insurance. Go back a few posts. I said I would rather have taxes go up and direct this money to the uninsured rather than create this mess we see now.

The battle between left and right is who's money to spend. Everyone agrees something needs to be done.

I don't think the elderly should have their benies cut so a 55 year old falling on hard times can get health care.

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abe23 said:

Well, in that case we agree on a lot more than you might think...

My question was the following:

What does having insurance companies that turn a profit add to the delivery of healthcare? What innovation do they provide. How does the consumer benefit from them? As long as the care that a doctor recommends is paid for, what is the difference between Aetna, Blue cross, united etc? Do we really needs competition? Not that there even really is any, since they have oligopolies in many states thanks to friendly legislatures. How does it improve my healthcare when the chief executive of united pockets a dollar for every 700 people pay in insurance premiums?

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DubsFan said:

I would rather not pay for anyones healthcare. But if it has to be done I would choose to pay more taxes than create some new top heavy system full of red tape.

The upside question...Who are we to tell a company they aren't allowed to make money. Upside for the consumer...They don't have to buy it if they don't like it.

What nobody is looking at here is the system that Kaiser Permanente uses. Their doctors are employees. There is no insurance billing or payment disputes. The patient pays a monthly charge and has access to Kaiser doctors with specific coverage. While some in SoCal have issues with Kaiser, the NorCal Kaiser I believe is a seperate entity and has a very good rep.

Doctors may have to opt to not have a private practice and work for a company rather than themselves. This could be a model for the rest of the industry to look at.

Kaiser has some pretty affordable coverage for individuals which is very hard to beat with an HMO or PPO system. You don't need a big group to get good rates with Kaiser.

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abe23 said:

You do realize that that Kaiser is a non-for-profit, right...? And I feel like that actually proves my point...once you take out the middle man, the profits, the overheads for the coverage deniers and management and actually deliver care to patients instead, you save everyone money.

Wouldn't you say kaiser is basically like a private not-for-profit single-payer system?

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Illegal Smile said:

Let's just take this one comment as symptomatic of the whole post. Making statements like this doesn't advance any point you might have. It is said that profanity is the effort of a feeble mind trying to express itself forcefully. Likewise, the "retarded gambit" just makes it seem as if you are really pissed but can't think of anything substantive to say so it's like "I'll show them.... I-I'll call them retarded! HA fuckin-A I'll call 'em retarded. That'll show 'em who's who around here!"

Indeed it does.

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abe23 said:

Because we pay for those 10-15% of the population's healthcare when we go to the emergency room. It would be cheaper to insure them.

Everyone should have the option of buying into medicare and insurance companies should be non-profit intermediaries as far as I'm concerned. Nobody should be denied treatment they need, it's that simple.

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